Their Moments Between The Chaos
by darkmoonvampire
Summary: It's not decisions that define her or the actions that history will remember her for that matter. It's how she was viewed by the man she loved more than anything. How she clung to him in the darkest of hours and the strength he gave her to carry on when all hope was lost. Cherished moments and memories that only belong to them. Female Shepard/Kaidan.


Hospital Visit:

Waking up in the hospital on the Citadel was not what Kaidan Alenko had been expecting, he had been expecting to not wake up at all after that android had nearly completely crushed his skull back on Mars. But he was thankful that his demise hadn't arrived even though every muscle in his body ached and roughly about half of his bones too. He was sore from being motionless too long and his throat was dry that it felt like sand paper.

His eyes opened slowly, fluttering to take in the sterile environment around him but squeezed them tightly when they met the harsh artificial lighting. His head already hurt from his injuries, he didn't need anything else adding to his discomfort. Fortunately he managed to adjust to the light and saw that his room was empty except from the medical desks and tables that surrounded the walls on each side and the windows that gave a great view of the Presidium.

Kaidan slowly moved his gaze downwards and saw that his torso was bare and that would explain the chills he was feeling but down his abdomen were bandages and along his arms as well. From what little he could see of his skin it was dotted with dozens of dark nasty looking bruises that seemed to be taking forever to heal.

'_It must have been a lot worse than I recall' _He thought as he tried to remember exactly what happened but he couldn't get past the android grabbing him and throwing him like a rag doll, and perhaps maybe that was all there was to remember but it frustrated the hell out of him.

He had been hoping that someone would be here if and when he eventually found his way back to the real world. In particular a certain Commander Shepard, the woman he had been in love with the past few years. In all honesty he would've been thoroughly surprised if she'd been here with him, after everything they had been through and the incident on Horizon hadn't exactly made them best of friends let alone lovers. Plus he figured that with the Reapers tearing up the Galaxy it would only be natural for her to be out there doing her best pulling everyone together and staving off the invasion. Still it would have been fantastic if she had been spending her time with him, unconscious or not to show that she still cared for him.

'_She got me here, and that's enough. Beside it's not like she was great at showing her feelings anyway.' _He thought as he found the button on the side of his bed that would signal a doctor in. The sooner he got better and up and running, the sooner he could rejoin the fight with her. In these desperate times there was nowhere else he'd rather be.

It wasn't long before Dr. Michel comes running in to his room looking stunned seeing him so alert and looking straight back at her. She composes herself quickly and starts checking his vitals and making sure he won't collapse anytime soon. "So you're finally awake? You sure had us all worried around here Major." She says casually taking recordings of her findings.

"Yeah sorry about that Doc." He's not sure what else to say so he remains quiet so she can do her work and keep him on the mend.

Dr. Michel chuckles to herself softly as she focuses on his head to check his implant. "Yes well I'm not the one you should be apologising to. I've never seen the Commander so distracted and wired up before. She must really be concerned about you." She pulls back and notes down some changes to be made to his treatment but isn't that concerned now that he's regained consciousness.

"She came to check up on me?" He asks without thinking, he's not sure why he sounds so surprised that she came to visit him but he is. He knew she would have plenty on her plate to deal with right now without adding unnecessary baggage to it.

"She escorted you in and practically had to be dragged away by Dr T'Soni." Michel takes a moment to let the information sink in before she continues, "And she's always coming straight here whenever she docks on the Citadel and nearly interrogating me about your condition. I don't mind though." She smiles sweetly at him before finally deciding that her patient needs rest and not thinking about jumping up and joining in on the action so soon. "But before you get any crazy ideas about going after her you need to rest until you've fully recovered."

"I would never." Kaidan lies and tries to give her his best innocent face but it has no effect on the young doctor as she simply shakes her head and leaves him alone to his thoughts once more. If his body didn't hurt half as much as it did now then he would be out of his room in a heartbeat. But despite hating it he did have to agree with Dr. Michel that he needed to be at his best if he was going to be any use to Commander Shepard.

But before heading off to sleep he managed to send Shepard a message from the omni tool left beside his bed informing her that he was awake and that he was hoping for a visit if she had time.

'_Time isn't on our side but somehow I know she will be here.' _He half reassures himself as he clicks send before settling back into the firm mattress and closing his eyes and willing his broken body to fix itself faster than humanly possible.

Kaidan doesn't know for how long he has slept but when he next wakes up in his empty feeling hospital room he turns his head to the right and his eyes widen when he realises that his room isn't as empty as he first believed.

'She came.' He is relieved and happy and so many other things at once that he isn't quite sure what to feel as he takes in the familiar way she leans against the wall next to the doorway, her unusually fiery red hair gently caressing mid way down her back and with her arms folded casually, head slightly lowered but those piercing cerulean eyes of hers gazing straight at him. Despite everything he had believed and said back on Horizon, he knows with every fibre of his being that this woman, this remarkable woman who seems almost unstoppable is the very same woman he came to know and love all those years ago.

He senses that she doesn't know what to say or how to start so he knows that he's the one who's going to have to take charge, after all he's the one who called her here to him. "Hey you made it." Now it might have sounded lame and cheap to anyone else but to Shepard it will be simple and right now that's all they need to get started.

"Hey yourself, of course I made it." She smirks ever so slightly at him and he notices that the tension in her shoulders relaxes a tiny bit. "Glad to see you're awake." Her voice is tender at this moment not the usual strong commander tone she uses when she's doing her damn hardest to save as many as she can, no this is her real voice. This is Valeria.

"It's good to be back." He wants to say so much more to her but he isn't sure if the words are correct or if it's the right time so he doesn't. But he silently vows that he will and he will make time if he has to somehow because it's killing him slowly that she simply doesn't know how much he loves her and how bad he's torn himself up about how he treated her on Horizon but right in this very moment it's not what matters the most.

Being so close to him has always been so hard for Valeria Shepard but she can't keep herself away from the man that his undeniably her everything, whether he wants to be or not is a different matter. She didn't want to fall for this man, or anyone else, she wanted to serve the alliance navy, do her duty and make her family proud. But the race against time with Saren and the moments she spent with Kaidan broke down her walls, he broke her in a way that she didn't think was possible and he placed himself so solidly within herself that to remove him was end herself.

So much has happened to them since that first year serving together. Heck she died and lost two years of her life only to come back and find that not much had changed and the galaxy was only getting worse and not better. At first she had wondered if it was all worth it, did the galaxy even want saving? She didn't know back then but she wasn't letting it go down without at least trying to do something to prepare for the inevitable Reaper invasion.

When she awoke on the Cerberus station with Miranda and Jacob all she wanted was to find Kaidan and show him she wasn't dead, she had so desperately wanted her old team back but it was denied to her. So she stuck with it and was eventually awarded with being reunited with him but he did the only thing he could do to her, the one thing she never in a million years expected he would do.

He tore himself out of her from where he had nestled into her heart and broke her.

However Valeria Shepard wouldn't even let Kaidan stop her from destroying the Collector base, stalling the arrival of the Reaper invasion by a few months to buy the galaxy desperately needed time it didn't know it had gained and wasted.

When he had been on deaths door on Mars she had stopped breathing for fear of him taking that last step from this mortal coil. That was what had led her back to this man who seemed to push her away to condemn her for something she hadn't been able to control. She was like a drug addict that simply couldn't be sobered up.

"Don't do that again." She orders him because no matter what happens from this point until the end she will never give him permission to die, will never allow him to die even after she herself no longer draws breath. "I need to get going." She needs to leave before she loses herself completely in his dark gaze and unfortunately the galaxy is waiting for its knight in shining armour.

In an instant she has slipped back behind her commander mask and he knows that he has lost this chance to talk too personally with her because she is a strong woman who leads the war and she must be getting back to what must be done. Her smile only touches the corners of her lips twitching upwards for the briefest of moments but he has seen it and knows she is thinking of him even if she doesn't say it. She immediately straightens herself up and leaves without hesitation and her hair softly flows behind her and the door hisses close.

He really hates the fact that he can't go with her yet.


End file.
